Yesterday in Parliament

Foot and mouth debate: Tories attack 'mean' aid for business

THE assistance offered by the Government to help the rural economy during the foot and mouth outbreak was described by the Tories yesterday as "penny-pinching, confused and ineffective".

As MPs returned to Westminster after the Easter recess, Archie Norman, the shadow environment secretary, said it was now clear that the impact of the disease on rural businesses and tourism was "at least as severe" as first feared.

During an emergency Commons question, Michael Meacher, the Environment Minister, said the first priority remained to maximise the use of rendering. He said the key to recovering from the crisis was to "get back to normality as quickly as possible".

Related Articles

But Mr Norman said: "If ever there was an emergency in a business sector it is now and if ever there was a need for a generous and speedy Government response it is also now."

He attacked Mr Meacher for not having any new proposals or money and condemned the Government's plans on rate relief as "woefully inadequate". TamDalyell (Lab, Linlithgow) suggested the Government sought help from the United States, which had experience of the use of napalm in the disposal of carcasses.

He said disposal in this way could take 60 minutes, and "because of the lack of vaporising effect of napalm, you don't get the by-products, the dioxins, that may arise from the burning of sleepers or old tyres." It may not have been considered because of overtones from Vietnam, which might not be acceptable to the public.

David Heath, a Lib Dem agriculture spokesman, spoke of what he called the "patchiness" in terms of financial response from the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and the banks to help businesses hit by the crisis. This was despite encouraging statements from Government ministers during the crisis.

Sir Patrick Cormack (C, South Staffs) said there were 47 cases of foot and mouth in Staffordshire, and Mr Meacher, rather than "go on bleating about footpaths" should compensate businesses to ensure they survive.

Dale Campbell-Savours (Lab, Workington) said that despite two very good days at Easter, the tourism industry in the Lake District "is really in crisis". He said that the Government should not offer compensation, but instead financial support to those who were really suffering.

John Burnett (Lib Dem, Torridge and West Devon) said his constituency had been devastated by the crisis which had impacted on every business. "Dartmoor particularly is unbelievably badly affected. It has come to a standstill." Lawrie Quinn (Lab, Scarborough and Whitby) spoke of the opening of footpaths in coastal areas and pointed out that there had been "tardiness" on the part of several local authorities.

Tom King (C, Bridgwater) said that prospects in areas such as Somerset, Devon and Cumbria were every bit as dire as originally feared and there was "scant comfort" for those living there. He suggested that interest-free loans were the answer, and warned that the infrastructure of tourism in some regions could be lost.

Brian Cotter (Lib Dem, Weston-Super-Mare), said he felt the ceiling for rate relief should be at £50,000 rather than £12,000. DavidMaclean (C, Penrith and the Border) spoke of the seething anger in Cumbria. "We see across the border £5 million being lobbed into the tourist board there, and peanuts to the Cumbria Tourist Board and from the Welsh Office that they are far more generous in rate relief than in England."

Meanwhile, during Question Time in the Lords, Lord Whitty, a junior environment minister who spent part of the Easter break in the West Country, said he realised the "serious problems" of the rural economy as a result of the foot and mouth outbreak. "There are serious problems for the rural economy as a whole, and particularly for small businesses."

Lady Mar (Crossbencher), a Worcestershire goat farmer, warned that "some businesses will never get their customers back". One local farmer had been installing a new milking machine when his cows contracted the disease and had to be slaughtered. The supplier would now never get his money.

Lady Mallalieu, president of the Countryside Alliance, called for "direct aid" to essential local shops and businesses to tide them over the next three months.

Green tax on aggregates 'is threat to quarry jobs'

THE proposed green tax on aggregates would do more harm than good to the environment and cost thousands of jobs, MPs from all sides warned the Government last night. The aggregates tax was designed to reduce the environmental impacts of quarrying, such as noise, dust, visual intrusion and damage to wildlife habitats.

Oliver Letwin, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, argued that up to 10,000 jobs could be affected by the tax and said the Government should re-examine the £1.60 a ton tax on any quarried sand and gravel.

Allan Rogers (Lab, Rhondda) said the charge had "nothing to do with the environment" and the whole idea was ill-conceived. He accused the Government of ignoring the views of the mineral extraction industry.

David Heath, for the Liberal Democrats, said the proposals might "reek of environmental rectitude" but they were actually likely to have the opposite effect. While there was a good case for protecting the environment from damage caused by quarrying, it had to be balanced with the realisation that the industry was an essential part of the economy.

More lorries would take to the roads as small businesses were forced to close and jobs would be driven out of the country. All three MPs took part in the opening stages of a Commons debate that examined the detailed provisions of March's Budget in the committee stage of the Finance Bill.

In addition, the British Aggregates Association urged MPs yesterday to throw out the levy, which it said would be the highest in Europe. William Ross (UUP, Londonderry East) said: "This will ensure that every house built will rise in cost. It is simply a revenue-raising exercise and will do far more harm than good." He said it could lead to up to three times more lorries on Northern Ireland's roads.

Tom Levitt (Lab, High Peak) said the tax needed improving with "narrow and controversial" parameters of costs and benefits. "This tax is unpopular with large sections of the industry and workforce and assumes the starting point that all quarries are equally bad," he warned.

Stephen Timms, Treasury Financial Secretary, defended the Government's plans, saying the levy would ensure that the price of aggregates reflected the environmental cost of obtaining them. "There are clear environmental benefits from the introduction of the levy," he said.

It was not a tax on jobs and would be "revenue neutral", raising no extra cash for the Treasury at all. Mr Timms said there were already aggregates levies in France, Sweden and Denmark and rejected calls for a delay in implementing it, saying there had been adequate consultation.

Richard Ottaway, shadow paymaster general, called for the first 250,000 tons to be exempt as a means of helping small quarries. Mr Ottaway said small quarries provided valuable jobs in rural areas and said the levy would make it harder for them to compete.

Mr Letwin described one part of the Bill, which dealt with the weighing of the aggregates, as "a remarkable object". He had not seen the regulations on how the aggregates were to be weighed and he did not believe Mr Timms had seen them.

Armed Forces: Attack on political correctness culture

TWO Tory MPs told the Government yesterday to stop the culture of political correctness creeping into the Armed Forces. This, Anne McIntosh (Vale of York) and Tim Boswell (Daventry) argued during Defence Questions, resulted in more compensation claims and they warned the Government to be on its guard.

Miss McIntosh pointed out that the MoD's legal liability had increased when the Government signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights and would get still larger if the Government agreed to join the planned international criminal court.

Mr Boswell told the Commons there was "a prevailing climate of litigiousness and political correctness" in the Armed Forces. Ministers should not give any signal that there was to be "an open season for compensation claims".

John Spellar, Armed Forces minister, replied that forces personnel should have the same rights as any other members of society. He said the number of outstanding claims had been "relatively constant" over the past four years. Although decisions of the European Court of Human Rights were bound to affect the numbers, he added, more efficient procedures for handling claims were likely to lead to the total outstanding falling in the future.

In the Lords, the Government was attacked for allowing "creeping political correctness" to undermine a Bill giving the military police wider powers of jurisdiction. During the Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill, Lord Burnham, a Tory defence spokesman, said the legislation "betrays the insidious effect of creeping political correctness in undermining the military ethos".

The Bill has already been passed in the Commons.

Lady Symons, minister of state for defence procurement, said the current legislation had served the Armed Forces well but there was scope for improvement.

Frank Johnson: Parliamentary Sketch

JULIAN BRAZIER (C, Canterbury) yesterday referred during Defence questions to "premature voluntary release". It seemed to be something to do with manning strengths in the Services but, if you spend a lot of time listening to MPs, the ills, social and medical, to which they constantly refer, can begin to turn you into a hypochondriac.

So I began to wonder whether I suffered from premature voluntary release. It did rather sound like one of those problems whose cure has to be advertised euphemistically: "Worried about premature voluntary release? PVR affects 90 per cent of males over 45. Our treatment is above all discreet."

It was MPs' first day back after their Easter break. They will be back for less than three weeks. Then it is dissolution, and the campaign. They had an air of wishing they were not here. Not indefinitely not here; just not here for these three weeks, when they would rather be back in the constituencies trying to be here indefinitely after the election.

So perhaps Premature Voluntary Release is something for which they yearn, not something from which they suffer. They proceeded as if the election had already been called, and the campaign was already on.

The main political news during the recess was Robin Cook's statement that chicken tikka massala was now our national dish: surely an announcement of such importance that it should have been made to the Commons. But Mr Cook's claim sounded, so to speak, fishy. It had about it, not just the whiff of brown sauce, but of corruption.

The Tories should have raised the matter yesterday, at the earliest opportunity. Mr Cook would then have had to face the wrath of fish and chip-loving Old Labour, and pro-polenta Blairites. But no Tory could think of a way of dragging chicken tikka massala into Defence questions.

Yet they could have demanded a comment on the report that, since - as a result of Mr Cook's decree - chicken tikka massala will now be compulsory in the British army, Jewish troops will be allowed to call it chicken tikka Massada.

There has been no such report? No matter. I hereby report it. The entire political class seems to have become race-obsessed. I am entitled to add my contribution.

Still, the Tories did their best with other subjects. Iain Duncan Smith, shadow defence secretary, returned to the matter of the European Rapid Reaction Force, perhaps to compensate for the lack of a Tory Rapid Reaction Force.

It is a good issue for the Tories. They know that the Americans are against it because it might produce an European army out of American control. The Government knows that too. The Tories know that the Government knows it, and that the Government knows that the Tories know it. So the Government dislikes its being mentioned. So the Tories mention it a lot.

Sir Peter Tapsell (C, Horncastle) pointed out that American congressional opinion was against it. Geoff Hoon, Defence Secretary, was reduced to arguing that some Americans are for it, and some against it. And those who were against it, according to Mr Hoon, were against it because Mr Duncan Smith has misrepresented it to them.

Mr Hoon's argument seemed to be that Americans, in the administration and Congress, were easily led by Mr Duncan Smith. This appears to downgrade the CIA and the London embassy. Little wonder that Mr Duncan Smith is talked about as a future Conservative leader. Perhaps his powers will work with British voters.

Mr Hoon said that, if Mr Duncan Smith had been Defence Secretary in 1914 or 1939, he would have refused to co-operate with our European allies. But surely we bombed Germany on our own, until the non-European Americans joined us.

Then Mr Hoon referred to the recent bombing of the Serbs, which he implied we could not have done without European help. He seemed to long for a Brussels Bomber Command under a Euro-Bomber Harris. Bomber Patten? Bomber Prodi. Neither sounds convincing somehow.

Quote of the day

'One should not believe everything one reads in the Sunday press'. Lewis Moonie, junior defence minister, denying that Whitehall buildings are bugged